Rep. Matt Gaetz on Friday explained why he didn’t go along with fellow conservative Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in trying to oust Speaker Mike Johnson earlier this week.
The Fort Walton Beach Republican argued in an email to constituents that Greene offered a “truthful, compelling case” to boot Johnson.
But in defending his vote to help save Johnson, Gaetz repeated an earlier contention that disrupting the GOP’s slim majority actually risks former President Donald Trump’s election prospects.
As the Tampa Free Press reported on Thursday, Gaetz and 18 of the 19 other Republicans from Florida voted to reject Greene’s push to remove Johnson. GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Clearwater did not vote.
Overall, Johnson survived with the help of 196 Republicans and 163 Democrats.
Prior to the vote, Greene made her argument for axing Johnson.
Johnson, she said, “has aided and abetted the Democrats and the Biden administration in destroying our country.”
“When given a choice between advancing Republican priorities or allying with the Democrats to preserve his own personal power, Johnson regularly chooses to ally himself with Democrats,” she argued.
Prominent among many examples, she cited Johnson’s work with Democrats to secure $61 billion in aid for Ukraine, his unwillingness or inability to secure the southern border, and his support for budget bills that funded “abortion, the trans agenda, the climate agenda, foreign wars, and [President Joe] Biden’s border crisis.”
In his email, Gaetz noted that Greene “made a truthful, compelling case against Mike Johnson, and she should be commended for this work.”
But, he added, “I ultimately voted to table the motion for one principal reason: With a two-seat majority in an election year, I believe two or three Republicans could be susceptible to bribes to resign, or even vote for a Democrat. Democrats would then instantly deem Trump an ‘insurrectionist’ to bar him from the ballot.”
Gaetz has said this before, as the Free Press reported last month.
Gaetz told Real America’s Voice host Grant Stinchfield that “two or three Republicans … could get bought off or paid off to switch, to retire, to resign, to feign some sort of health problem so that Democrats would be in control.”
“If Democrats got control of the speakership, I believe they would refuse to seat President [Donald] Trump, even after a lawful and valid election for him for president of the United States,” Gaetz added.
“That’s how big the stakes are. That’s how much of an enemy to democracy House Democrats really have shown to be, trying to deem Trump an insurrectionist and not allow him to be a choice for the people of our country who want a return to the prosperity at home and the peace around the world that President Trump provided.”
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The congressman added that was why he saw “grave danger” in Greene’s efforts.
But on Friday, he said he hoped that Johnson got the message from conservatives.
“House Republicans must do better. We must be led better,” he wrote.
“While I voted to table the motion to vacate the Speaker, hopefully this threat can be used as a positive upward management tool in order to get the most out of him.”
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